the expansion cincinnati bengals were next on the list where he served under the legendary paul brown and an old school football man who passed on walsh when it was time to name a successor, leaving the bengals for a year in san diego before getting his first chance as a head coach. >> and there were those in the league that did not think i was head coach material to let everybody know it, including paul brown, who i had worked for. so it was difficult all the way through. then my big break, of course, they came at stanford university. >> paul brown's loss was stanford's game. under walsh, they won successive bowl games. parallelling the 49ers team, declining to the league's depths. under the new owner, unpopular general manager, they went through three coaches in two years. >> they asked me when i first went to stanford if i would be the head coach of the 49ers. of course, i had nothing to do with it. but then they decided that they needed to revamp the whole thing and i was right there. and we met. and we made it happen. >> reporter: but not right away. walsh's first team equaled th